


in which prometheus sprouts wings

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexuality, Drinking, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Historical, Historical Accuracy, Philosophy, Platonic Relationships, Precognition, Prophetic Visions, Reincarnation, Slave Trade, Swearing, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Nothing, War, because Im a NERD, its all history babyyyyyyyy, no beta we die, returning to my roots, the mountain goats again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: He is born on the ashes of the Roman countryside, in the footsteps of Hannibal Barca.He is indistinct, he is all-knowing. He sees the gods topple and he sees Rome’s final days. He watches the sky as it caves in for the last time. He has no human form, so he cannot weep, but the particles of dust and ash that will forge him scream at the sky over the injustice of it all.He is new. He is unformed. He has yet to be given a name. But already he is angry. It is a fitting birth.-Jericho is born for the first time in Rome. He will die and be reborn many times again. Not quite god, and not quite human either- cursed to see the future and yet never change it. It will be this way forever.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	1. New Star Song

**Author's Note:**

> all chapter titles are taken from the mountain goats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How it starts.

He is born on the ashes of the Roman countryside, in the footsteps of Hannibal Barca.

He is indistinct, he is all-knowing. He sees the gods topple and he sees Rome’s final days. He watches the sky as it caves in for the last time. He has no human form, so he cannot weep, but the particles of dust and ash that will forge him scream at the sky over the injustice of it all.

He is new. He is unformed. He has yet to be given a name. But already he is angry. It is a fitting birth.

Rat, the god of small things, tells him that he is not like the others.

He is forming, now. His body is coming into itself, pulling together all the little things to form blood and skin and bones. His lack of name plucks at the strings in his spine.

“Look at yourself. You’re so much more human than me.”

He looks at his bones, at the muscle stitching over them, and knows that they’re right. That this form is not even close to godly. Sharp pain in his chest makes him hunch over, clutching at the ribcage still becoming inside him.

He looks up. But the god of small things is gone, and the goddess of guidance stands in their place. “You’re not immortal,” she says, and it is not a question. His eyes brim over with tears and the first sound that comes out of his new throat is a sob. “That’s your lifespan, isn’t it? That thing in your chest. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do with you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. He did not learn language. He was born with them all inside of him, every present and future tongue that could be spoken is already sitting in his head. He doesn’t know what language he apologizes in, but it must not be invented yet because she doesn’t seem to understand.

“I feel as though we’ll be speaking a lot. I doubt that your life will be without crossroads.” She touches his head, gently. He gets the impression that she thinks he’ll break if she presses too hard. She’s gone as suddenly as she had arrived, blowing away with the wind.

His ears ring with the new name she has left behind. He picks it off the ground and brushes away the ash, holding it to his chest.

He watches its fall, watches its rise. His eyes glow white as he remembers Joshua before Joshua is born.

His name is Jericho.

-

That first time is stumbling. Through Rome, through life. Fabius arches through the streets. The townsfolk whisper of Hannibal, of scorched Roman Earth, of Fabius’s untouched land. Jericho sees the retreat of the Carthigians, watches the Battle of the Trebia in his dreams.

He ambushes Sempronius before he begins command of the Roman forces. His clumsy body, his new form, cornering a general. He cries. He begs the man not to fight, not to lead his troops into battle. He tells Sempronius of the massacre in words that trip and stumble over one another on their way out.

No one listens, no one hears. Jericho holds himself and reads of Tiresias. He watches out his window as Sempronius comes home from battle, his 42,000 men cut to 10,000. Bitterness grows in his chest.

He sleeps in a bed and wakes in a fountain. His arms are clear at night and covered with Sanskrit in the morning. He speaks of Testaments yet to be written. His eyes glow white (The snow of Russia in the Great Northern War, the rocket that will send humans to the moon, the colour of the great final death).

Hannibal leaves and Rome burns behind him. Jericho dies the way he was born.

-

He is born again on the day Christ dies, as the sun is swallowed by the moon. Guidance comes to him again, once he’s coughed the ash out of his lungs and gathered his memories from the floor. It’s only when he first sees her that he realizes they’re sitting at a crossroads.

“My name is Gael,” she tells him, this time, sitting by his side. “I’ve never met a god who dies. But I’m the one who keeps getting tugged to you, so I suppose I’m meant to help.”

Jericho thinks of phoenixes, of ash. How long has he slept for? Where has the Rome he’d grown used to gone? He feels the familiar mortal tightness in his chest, feels the things he knows will happen echo down his bones.

“Who made me?” He asks her, the tears coming back. Why has he only ever met her on his knees?

“I don’t know, kid. No one’s ever gonna figure out the answer to that question. Just go with the idea that you were born out of space or something and things will get a lot easier.” She drops down and grabs him by the chin. She doesn’t seem afraid to break him now, but her grip is so tight that he thinks it might happen. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to be. But I don’t like it. I have a job to do, and I can’t keep coming here to wake you up every couple hundred years.”

He grabs her wrist and her hand falls away from his jaw. He uses her arm as support to pull himself up, trying to ignore the blood rushing to his head. “I can see the future.”

She doesn’t even blink, just pries his fingers off her wrist. “How far?” She dusts her hands off on her Toga.

“As far as it goes. As much as there is.” His hair is the same length it was when he died, he can’t help but think.

“That’s a lot of time,” she points out unnecessarily. “Or maybe it’s not. I wouldn’t know, would I?” She gives him a pointed look, then gestures up to his face. “When did you get that? It wasn’t there when I picked you up.”

He touches it and feels scar tissue travelling over his lip. “I don’t know. Maybe it happens when I die?”

She shrugs loosely. There is no goodbye, no wave. Simply an absence where Gael was.

Jericho is alone again, and he is already afraid. It is a fitting birth.


	2. Quetzalcoatl Eats Plums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The god of small things steps into the spotlight

Rat stumbled on Jericho a lot, before they started speaking to him. They’d be admiring the flowers in Athens, dancing to street music, or sitting at the theatre, and he’d be there, that familiar face from Rome, so many years ago.

He has new scars, every time they see him. They worry for him, quietly. They’ve never known what he was, what became of him, or why they could see his human lifespan so clearly inside of him if he’s lived this long.

The first time they work up the nerve to talk to him, it’s 1066. They’re walking through London, speaking aloud to a bird, when they see him sitting under a tree. His posture is defeated as he watches a construction project happening in the distance.

He has a new scar, again. It’s harder to notice this one, at first. It’s nearly buried by his hair, but it’s across his temple.

They spend a few seconds trying to figure out what they’re going to say before stopping that thought in its tracks. They don’t have to figure it out. It will come to them if they just do it.

So they walk over and sit down under the tree, about a meter away from him. They still don’t know his name yet. They should ask that.

“How are you still alive?” He flinches, clutching a hand to his chest.

“What?”

“How-”

He waves a hand, his pupils still shaky. “Yeah, I heard you, just- what? Have we met?”

Rat lets out a long breath, settling into the dirt and watching a caterpillar chew on a leaf. “We did. Back in Rome, around twelve hundred years ago. I never did get your name.”

He's too easy to read. He goes from confusion, to horror, to realization, and he practically writes it all on his face. “Jericho,” he mumbles.

“Rat. God of-”

“Of small things, yeah. I remember.” Jericho brings a leg up to his chest, tapping on the knee. He’s got a long scar running over the space between two of his knuckles.

“How have you lived this long? I thought you were human.” They try to look him in the eyes, but it’s oddly difficult. Maybe it’s just the colour. Maybe it’s that the scar over his nose is a lot more attention grabbing.

Jericho is tapping a rhythm. Rat wonders what song he could be thinking of. “Not really. I can die, but I come back. Always get, y’know,” he taps on the scar Rat is staring at, “one of these when I wake up.”

“What are you the god of?” Rat feels like they’re being rude, even if they don’t quite know how.

Jericho brings his other leg up and crosses them at the ankles, still tapping on his knees. “I can see the future.”

They’re both silent for a long time, sitting and watching the builders in the distance. A question pops into Rat’s head. Jericho speaks before they can ask it. “That tower they’re building is going to stand for a thousand years, Rat. More than that.” He’s silent for another long minute. “And even it’s going to be gone one day.”

Rat scans the horizon. “Do you know what the prettiest flower in the world will be?”

“What?”

“Do you? Can you see that, in your visions?”

Jericho blinks a little and then scrunches up his nose, glaring. “Really?  _ That’s  _ what you want to know? That’s so subjective and- and pointless! You meet a prophet and the first thing you ask him is  _ what’s the prettiest flower?” _

Rat shrugs. “Just wanted to know. I guess it  _ is  _ a pretty subjective question. What do you think it is?”

“Just piss off. No one gives a shit about flowers. You want me to talk about when this tower is gonna crumble, or how the King will die, then go ahead. I’m a prophet for a reason. Ask me a real question, please.” Jericho picks at the threads in his trousers, still glaring but not in any particular direction.

“It is a real question.” Rat wants to put a hand on Jericho’s shoulder or teach him how to meditate. Something to help get rid of that lost, angry look in his eyes. “My favourite is the hyacinth.”

Jericho gets up and storms off, down the hill, away from the tree. Rat is alone.

It takes 200 hundred years to see him again. He has five new scars. Ghengis Khan is conquering the world. They’re playing Solitaire together. Rat hardly remembers how they ended up here, sitting on a bridge in the middle of Japan, teaching a not-quite-immortal how to play cards.

Jericho is calmer than he used to be. He has less worry lines this life, although his eyebags are just as prominent. There’s a scar running through his eyebrow now. He doesn’t smile any more than he used to.

“Have you ever been in love, Rat?”

Rat blinks. Swallows. “No, I don’t think I have. Are you in love?”

Jericho doesn’t respond, and that’s answer enough. Rat feels very old, sitting next to him. He’s practically an infant in comparison to them.

“I’m scared of it, I think,” he admits, quietly. He places down a Jack. “I don’t- I don’t think I’m ready. To wake up without him someday. But it’s going to happen.” It’s the softest voice he’s ever used, Rat thinks. He’s never this reserved, not about anything.

“I don’t know. Humans have to deal with that all the time, do they not? It’s just their lives; loving and losing, over and over.”

Jericho bites on his nails and Rat hopes that the glassiness of his eyes is just the reflection of the sun and not tears. “I’m not human though. I shouldn’t have to deal with it.” The familiar angry tone is back, which should be less of a relief than it is.

“You’re human enough,” Rat replies, placing an ace into their foundation pile. “I think you should enjoy it while it lasts. It’s not every lifetime that you get to fall in love with someone. I don’t think you should let that fear hold you back. I mean, it doesn't hold humans back, does it?” Rat smiles a little. They’ve always liked humanity too much, and it’s shining through more than they’d normally allow, but they can’t help it. “They live for the fleeting. That kind of love. Whatever it is- friendship or romance or what have you. Humans live to love and be loved, no matter how long it lasts. You’re human enough to deserve the same, I think.”

Jericho stares at them for a long time. Rat places a king down, and he doesn’t move. He swallows, rubs at the back of his neck, picks at the seams of his trousers and drums his hands over his knees.

Finally, he makes a small noise and says “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Rat replies. They stare at their card pile, glancing into the water under the bridge every once in a while, watching the fish swim by.

“It’s peonies.”

Rat’s eyes dart back to him. “What?”

“My favourite flower. You asked me, two hundred years ago, what my favourite flower was. And I didn’t tell you. And now I have. It’s peonies.” Rat smiles.

“That’s nice. I’ll bring you some, next time we meet.”

Jericho smiles gently, looking up at Rat’s face, finally. “I’d like that.”


	3. Fault Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short scene in Paris

Jericho leans on the railing, watching Paris move below him. The daily life, the fleeting things. The men and women buying clothes and food and art, living in a bubble where nothing else matters.

"Why do you care?" He asks Rat. "What's the point in the small things, in daily life? Everyone here will be dead in a century. Even this tower," he gestures with a hand, "will be gone in a couple of years." It's bolder than he used to let himself be. He still remembers Rome, those first few lives. Stumbling over being himself, grasping at straws for an identity. He's no longer young. He's hardly even Roman. These days, Jericho isn't much of anything but tired.

"Someone has to."

"A person of many words," Jericho grumbles bitterly. He drums his fingers on the cool metal, mouth tasting of copper and hurt.  _ Bitter _ , he thinks.  _ Bitter, old, and tired. That's all you are anymore. _

Rat surprises him by piping up again. "I only speak the truth, Jericho. No one appreciates the little, the inconsequential. You're so focused on the end that you never stop to appreciate the middle parts; the roses and the insects and the beautiful street music. I am the god of small things."

Jericho ignores the shiver crawling up his back and pushes himself away from the railing. He rubs at the scar that runs over his shoulder, taps on the one tracing over his knuckles. He drags his fingers through the gravel that is the history of this body. Plague and crucifixion, freezing harbours and witch hunts.

"I've been a prophet for too long to appreciate roses, Rat. I've seen too many endings to care. I am the god of the future. There are no insects in my dreams." The door to the stairwell falls closed behind him, and they are both alone.


	4. The Recognition Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give a man fire and he'll set himself alight.

Two thousand years after his first death, Jericho tries to burn the world down.

He is so angry. Gods above, he is angry with the world. He cuts sugar cane, feels molasses in his lungs, feels a thousand whips crack on his back, and he is  _ so angry.  _ It’s not the first time he’s tried to lose that anger in a fire.

He closes his eyes and lets the heat stroke his face, tender and gentle, an almost human touch. It wipes the tears off his cheeks. He met a priest, years ago, who asked why he was angry. And Jericho could never answer. The barbed words sat under his tongue, filling up his mouth with blood, and he could never get them out no matter how he tried.

He opens his eyes to watch the red-yellow light climbing up the house. A strange calm has overcome him. He might die here. He wants to watch Saint Domingue go free, liberate themselves and live in peace, but he doesn’t think he’ll get to see it. He never survives wars. He’s never that lucky.

And he knows that it goes free, because he always knows. He’d like to see it.

Maybe the fire is healing his scars.

He’s always liked fire, although he’s never liked its story. There’s probably a god of it, somewhere, wherever the gods live. He’s never swallowed enough of his pride to ask. But he knows what the Greeks thought.

He’s always hated Prometheus. The story has nestled itself behind his breastbone since he heard it. The Eagle that tears at Prometheus’s liver has found its way to his stomach and made itself a home.

“Prometheus is a horrible story,” he told Rat in Italy, watching the Renaissance unfold in front of them. They were playing Chess, he thinks.

“Too close to home?” Rat had replied with a smile. Their knight took his rook.

“It’s cheap,” Jericho spat. He moved a pawn absentmindedly.

Rat moved their knight again. “Checkmate.”

The Titan of forethought. He should have been able to see his fate. He would have seen what was coming, so why did he give the humans fire anyways? Jericho watches a beam of the house crumple to the ground.

His first death was to fire. To smoke. He’s died so many times and he always comes back, never done.

Jericho is so  _ fucking tired. _

Someone asks why he’s so angry and he thinks that he knows. Thinks that maybe it's the gods, who have never cared enough to help. Or maybe it’s humans, with their savagery and their conquerors and their desperation to change the world, with the evil deep inside them that they so rarely crawl over. Or maybe it’s himself, somewhere in between, not god enough to stop caring and not human enough to interfere.

Part of him is always going to wait for a point. The reason he’s here, the reason he’s alive, the reason he is nothing and everything and future and past. And the answer is not coming, he knows that as well as he knows all other things.

Because Zeus has never given a shit about him.

Jericho breathes cinder and sparks. In and out. He could set the world on fire if he got lucky enough. If he dies, he hopes it takes a long time for him to wake up. He could sleep for centuries.

There are gunshots in the distance, but that’s just background noise by now. War has raged on Saint Domingue for two years, by now. He thinks that everyone is used to it.

Prometheus was a fool. It’s his fault that the world is evil and sick and festering. Give a man fire and he’ll set himself alight. Teach a man to make his own and he’ll burn the world down.

Jericho thinks about ships from Africa, about sickness and starvation and people boiled alive in molasses and he is so angry.

He chokes on laughter and it tastes like salt.

He screams because he was a fool, because he got attached to people, like he does every life. Because he fell in love with being human, so deeply and heavily in love with it. And he’ll do it again in his next rebirth, chained to the same rock, facing the same eagles.

Fire licks his ankles and Jericho laughs at himself, the funniest tragedy the world has ever seen.

Maybe he’ll learn. Maybe the next liver will grow back stronger. But who is he kidding with that thought?

Smoke climbs into his lungs and Jericho finds the moon. It’s a cloudy night. It’ll rain soon. He coughs and laughs and his tears burn gold and it is a perfectly awful night to die.


	5. Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, The Triumph Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two old friends meet again in the woods.

Jericho meets Rat again in 1852.

He’s in America, this time, working on the Underground railroad. He’s travelling to Alabama on foot, sleeping in the woods.

He’s sitting around the fire when Rat appears on the other side. He doesn’t startle outwardly, but his heart misses a beat. “What are you doing here?” He runs his tongue over the small scar on the inside of his cheek. It’s been a nervous habit since he woke with it some two hundred years ago, one he hasn’t been able to shake. Sometimes, he wonders if one of these days he’s going to die and wake up with scar tissue in his throat, or over his tongue. It’s probably only a matter of time.

“I wanted to say hi,” they respond, voice gentle. Jericho blinks at them. “Plus, I have a new card game to show you. I think you’ll like it.”

“Rat it’s been two damned centuries since we spoke. I’m gonna need more reason than a card game.” He thinks he’s more surprised at the bitterness in his voice than Rat is.

They draw a small metal box from their pocket, getting up off the rock they’re sitting on just to move down to the ground next to the fire. They open the box and present a standard deck of cards. “It’s called War. Do you want to play?”

“Funny,” Jericho mutters, crossing his arms and keeping himself firmly planted on his rock.

“What is?”

“You want to play a game called War. Right now? Come on, you don’t have to be a prophet to know that Hell is gonna break loose soon.” Jericho tries not to think about learning how to play Solitaire with Rat as Mongolia tried to conquer the world. He tries not to think about playing Solitaire nearly every day as revolution and fighting tore Saint Domingue to pieces.

Rat smiles a little, at that. “I figured it’d be fitting, if not a little on the nose. I think you need something simple, right now. I think everyone does.”

“You always think that.”

Rat laughs. “Very true. My domain always flourishes during times of great strife, which is always, at the moment. But that’s not the reason I’m here.” Their smile falls, and they look up at Jericho seriously. “You need this right now. And…” Rat looks away. “And I miss talking to you. I want to help.”

And Jericho-

Jericho doesn’t really know to respond to that.

The first thing he feels is a surging wave of jealousy. Rat has a domain. Rat can go where they want. Rat actually knows what they’re doing. Jericho doesn’t have any of that. He doesn’t even know why he’s here, helping the railroad, in the first place.

It’s not like it’ll really change anything. Not like it will make that big of a dent. It’s been so long since he tried to do anything that made a real difference, since he tried to tell anyone the future, that he doesn’t even remember what he thought it would do.

Maybe it’s the memory of cutting sugarcane forever and of work without end and of a revolution in a place that used to be called Saint Domingue.

“Do you want to play?”

Jericho cracks his knuckles, tapping his foot against the ground. “Are we friends, Rat?” Jericho feels an odd emptiness inside of him. Of all the things he knows, why can he never know this?

“I don’t know. I’d like to be, though.” They start to shuffle the cards, even though Jericho hasn’t moved from the rock.

He doesn’t know why he says it, but he can’t stop himself. “I’ve seen you die. I’ve watched the world end. The sun is going to explode, one day, and the gods are going to die with everyone else. You’re always talking about the small things, but they don’t matter in the face of that. That’s the big picture. That’s where everything is headed. Who gives a shit about card games, when that’s how the world is gonna end?”

Rat keeps shuffling the deck, not even flinching. “I do.” Jericho stops fidgeting and looks at them, feeling a sudden and irrational anger flood his chest.

“Why? Why and how can you fucking care, knowing that?”

“It’s just more reason to appreciate these things while they’re still here. While you still can. Stop and smell every rose, because one day you’re not going to be able to.” Rat begins dealing the cards, separating them into two piles.

It’s a disturbingly human mindset for a god to have.

Jericho gets up from the rock and sits down across from Rat, in the dirt. He has work to do tomorrow, and for the next eight years after that. Then, he’ll have another war to fight in. But for now, he’s just going to play cards.

“Do you still remember how to count?”

“No.”

“How did you keep playing Solitare after I left if you don’t remember how to count?”

“Dunno.”

“Alright, gods you’re difficult, basically in this game you put down a card from the top of your deck every round, and if you both pull the same card…”


	6. Up the Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the war.

The hardest part about surviving the war is he’s never done it before. Jericho doesn't know how he did it, but he did, and he’s out of it now. He doesn’t know how to feel about that yet.

He hasn’t spoken to Rat since the war started. 

Getting home is new. It could be interesting to someone else. Jericho doesn’t really get interested in things anymore, but if he looks at the situation differently, if he tilts his head a couple of degrees, then maybe he can find something there.

The hardest part about going home is that he has one now.

He’s not used to this, having somewhere to rest. He still remembers the tenth century, travelling with Romani nomads for so long that he could almost forget he wasn’t one of them. He’s never cared much for heritage. He doesn’t know why he’s still bitter about that life.

Jericho drops a duffel bag full of clothes on to the floor. He bought an apartment before the war started. He didn’t think he’d see it again.

Of all the things he can predict, why can he never know this?

It’s small and shit and it makes him think of Rat, because before the Great War started they baked cookies to give to the old widow that lived below him. Jericho hadn’t ever had cookies before. It makes him think of Rat putting their hands over his, guiding him on how fast to stir the batter if he wanted everything just right.

Jericho can feel their fingers around his palm still, the shadow of their touch burning his skin. He sits down on his ratty green couch. He stares at the peeling wallpaper and his head hurts.

He lived. He won.

Victory tastes like mustard gas. Tiny mirrors inside of his skull shatter and burst and stab into his brain and he has a headache and he needs a fucking drink.

Jericho gets a drink, or a few. He dusts off his radio and listens to James Reese Europe croon down the static. He sleeps on the couch and dreams of Odysseus.

Jericho doesn’t know what happened to the old widow that lived in the apartment below him. He likes the idea that she moved out to a better place, or found a new husband, or that she’s still living there but she’s happier, now. He doesn’t like not knowing.

He could knock on her door. He could make more cookies.

But part of him starts considering the idea that she might have died while he was gone, and his hands are shaking too much to bake, and he really needs another drink.

He hates Great Britain and he misses Rome. He misses being young and only knowing the future. He misses not having left things behind. He misses being that person because he was lonely and terrified and he cried every night but at least he wasn’t himself yet. At least he didn’t know who he really was yet.

The worst part about war is that it teaches you who you are. He could pretend he was a hero when he died. He can’t pretend anymore.

Rat hasn’t spoken to him since the war started. Maybe they’ve finally figured him out too- figured out that he’s a coward and a cynic and a lonely asshole who they’ve only ever felt sorry for.

Jericho watches the brown-red whiskey drip down the walls. He doesn’t even know why he threw the glass. Of all the things he knows, why can he never know this?

The glass shards crunch beneath Rat’s shoes as they materialize on top of it. “Do you want to talk?” Their voice is nice. Calming. They’ve picked up a different accent. Jericho feels the absurd urge to punch them in the face.

“No,” he says instead and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“I think we should.”

Jericho rocks back on his heels and breathes in deep. He runs his tongue over the scar on the inside of his cheek. He concentrates on the scar running over his foot, tracing it in his mind as he tries to think of what he’s supposed to say next.

Because as much as he wants to, he can’t ask them to bake cookies with him again. He doesn’t think there’s a widow in the apartment below him anymore. He doesn’t think his hands are steady enough to hold the whisk. And he doesn’t think he’s ready to potentially learn that Rat doesn’t want him to.

They step off the glass and get closer. “Have you been drinking?”

“Fuck off,” Jericho spits. “Why would you care?”

Rat gives him a stern look. “I’m your friend, Jericho.”

Jericho backs away from them and slips behind the kitchen counter, feeling that wave of unsavoury bitterness come back again. He doesn’t even know why he’s angry. Rat tries and that’s more than anyone else has ever done, more than he’s ever let anyone else do. “When did that start being important to you?”

And maybe he’s a little mad about them going MIA for four years, and maybe he’s still a little mad that the last game of cards they played was fifty years ago and he still doesn’t think they should have won it, and maybe he’s still mad about them being an aloof asshole in Paris and maybe he’s still mad about Rome, when no one would tell him what was going on and they all abandoned him in favour of whatever the fuck else they were doing because now he’s  _ this  _ and he’s tired and he’s  _ sad  _ and he’s tired of being sad.

And maybe he’s madder at himself. For being bitter even though he knows that Rat has better things to do than play cards.

“That’s not fair,” they tell him as if he doesn’t know that.

“Well I’m not a good person, so that checks out, doesn’t it?” He picks at the scar on his thumb and doesn’t dare look up.

“I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

Jericho feels his hands twitch like he’s loading a rifle. He hears footsteps creaking on the floorboards and sees Rat’s feet walking into the kitchen. They get to the counter and then sit down on the kitchen tile next to his feet.

He swallows. “I’m really tired, Rat,” he confesses. He doesn’t know where the words come from. Maybe he found them on the floor or written in the calluses on his hands.

“Me too.” He hears the squeak of their shoes against the tile. He lowers himself down, ignoring his aching back to lean against the counter by their side.

“And lonely.”

Rat moves closer and Jericho feels their arm against his. He figures this is about as close as either of them will ever get to love. “What a coincidence- so am I.” They pause for a while as they both take in the faint sound of a radio turned nearly all the way down in the background. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, Jericho.”

“Thanks.” His head hurts, and he thinks he would cry if he could.

“If I had to be lonely with someone, I’d be happy to be lonely with you.”

Jericho watches their shoes. He reaches out with his foot and sets it next to theirs.

“Do you still like to bake?”

**Author's Note:**

> give me validation lol


End file.
